The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book ‘Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him out of idleness, I have no fear for the man-cub. He is wise and well taught, and above all he has the eyes that make the Jungle-People afraid. But (and it is a great evil) he is in the power of the Bandar-log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of our people.’ Bagheera licked one forepaw thoughtfully. ‘Fool that I am! Oh, fat, brown, root-digging fool that I am,’ said Baloo, uncoiling himself with a jerk, ‘it is true what Hathi the Wild Elephant says: ‘To each his own fear’; and they, the Bandar-log, fear Kaa the Rock Snake. He can climb as well as they can. He steals the young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their wicked tails cold. Let us go to Kaa.’ ‘What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe, being footless—and with most evil eyes,’ said Bagheera. ‘He is very old and very cunning. Above all, he is always hungry,’ said Baloo hopefully. ‘Promise him many goats.’ ‘He sleeps for a full month after he has once eaten. He may be asleep now, and even were he awake what if he would rather kill his own goats?’ Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally suspicious. 51 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Then in that case, thou and I together, old hunter, might make him see reason.’ Here Baloo rubbed his faded brown shoulder against the Panther, and they went off to look for Kaa the Rock Python. They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid—darting his big blunt- nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he thought of his dinner to come. ‘He has not eaten,’ said Baloo, with a grunt of relief, as soon as he saw the beautifully mottled brown and yellow jacket. ‘Be careful, Bagheera! He is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and very quick to strike.’ Kaa was not a poison snake—in fact he rather despised the poison snakes as cowards—but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once lapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said. ‘Good hunting!’ cried Baloo, sitting up on his haunches. Like all snakes of his breed Kaa was rather deaf, and did not hear the call at first. Then he curled up ready for any accident, his head lowered. 52 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Good hunting for us all,’ he answered. ‘Oho, Baloo, what dost thou do here? Good hunting, Bagheera. One of us at least needs food. Is there any news of game afoot? A doe now, or even a young buck? I am as empty as a dried well.’ ‘We are hunting,’ said Baloo carelessly. He knew that you must not hurry Kaa. He is too big. ‘Give me permission to come with you,’ said Kaa. ‘A blow more or less is nothing to thee, Bagheera or Baloo, but I—I have to wait and wait for days in a wood-path and climb half a night on the mere chance of a young ape. Psshaw! The branches are not what they were when I was young. Rotten twigs and dry boughs are they all.’ ‘Maybe thy great weight has something to do with the matter,’ said Baloo. ‘I am a fair length—a fair length,’ said Kaa with a little pride. ‘But for all that, it is the fault of this new-grown timber. I came very near to falling on my last hunt—very near indeed—and the noise of my slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped around the tree, waked the Bandar-log, and they called me most evil names.’ ‘Footless, yellow earth-worm,’ said Bagheera under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember something. 53 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Sssss! Have they ever called me that?’ said Kaa. ‘Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we never noticed them. They will say anything—even that thou hast lost all thy teeth, and wilt not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log)—because thou art afraid of the he-goat’s horns,’ Bagheera went on sweetly. Now a snake, especially a wary old python like Kaa, very seldom shows that he is angry, but Baloo and Bagheera could see the big swallowing muscles on either side of Kaa’s throat ripple and bulge. ‘The Bandar-log have shifted their grounds,’ he said quietly. ‘When I came up into the sun today I heard them whooping among the tree-tops.’ ‘It—it is the Bandar-log that we follow now,’ said Baloo, but the words stuck in his throat, for that was the first time in his memory that one of the Jungle-People had owned to being interested in the doings of the monkeys. ‘Beyond doubt then it is no small thing that takes two such hunters—leaders in their own jungle I am certain— on the trail of the Bandar-log,’ Kaa replied courteously, as he swelled with curiosity. 54 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Indeed,’ Baloo began, ‘I am no more than the old and sometimes very foolish Teacher of the Law to the Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera here—‘ ‘Is Bagheera,’ said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did not believe in being humble. ‘The trouble is this, Kaa. Those nut-stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man-cub of whom thou hast perhaps heard.’ ‘I heard some news from Ikki (his quills make him presumptuous) of a man-thing that was entered into a wolf pack, but I did not believe. Ikki is full of stories half heard and very badly told.’ ‘But it is true. He is such a man-cub as never was,’ said Baloo. ‘The best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs—my own pupil, who shall make the name of Baloo famous through all the jungles; and besides, I—we—love him, Kaa.’ ‘Ts! Ts!’ said Kaa, weaving his head to and fro. ‘I also have known what love is. There are tales I could tell that—‘ ‘That need a clear night when we are all well fed to praise properly,’ said Bagheera quickly. ‘Our man-cub is in the hands of the Bandar-log now, and we know that of all the Jungle-People they fear Kaa alone.’ 55 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘They fear me alone. They have good reason,’ said Kaa. ‘Chattering, foolish, vain—vain, foolish, and chattering, are the monkeys. But a man-thing in their hands is in no good luck. They grow tired of the nuts they pick, and throw them down. They carry a branch half a day, meaning to do great things with it, and then they snap it in two. That man-thing is not to be envied. They called me also—‘yellow fish’ was it not?’ ‘Worm—worm—earth-worm,’ said Bagheera, ‘as well as other things which I cannot now say for shame.’ ‘We must remind them to speak well of their master. Aaa-ssp! We must help their wandering memories. Now, whither went they with the cub?’ ‘The jungle alone knows. Toward the sunset, I believe,’ said Baloo. ‘We had thought that thou wouldst know, Kaa.’ ‘I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the Bandar-log, or frogs—or green scum on a water-hole, for that matter.’ ‘Up, Up! Up, Up! Hillo! Illo! Illo, look up, Baloo of the Seeonee Wolf Pack!’ Baloo looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Rann the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. It was 56 of 241

The Jungle Book near Rann’s bedtime, but he had ranged all over the jungle looking for the Bear and had missed him in the thick foliage. ‘What is it?’ said Baloo. ‘I have seen Mowgli among the Bandar-log. He bade me tell you. I watched. The Bandar-log have taken him beyond the river to the monkey city—to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights, or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is my message. Good hunting, all you below!’ ‘Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Rann,’ cried Bagheera. ‘I will remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone, O best of kites!’ ‘It is nothing. It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word. I could have done no less,’ and Rann circled up again to his roost. ‘He has not forgotten to use his tongue,’ said Baloo with a chuckle of pride. ‘To think of one so young remembering the Master Word for the birds too while he was being pulled across trees!’ ‘It was most firmly driven into him,’ said Bagheera. ‘But I am proud of him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs.’ 57 of 241

The Jungle Book They all knew where that place was, but few of the Jungle People ever went there, because what they called the Cold Lairs was an old deserted city, lost and buried in the jungle, and beasts seldom use a place that men have once used. The wild boar will, but the hunting tribes do not. Besides, the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live anywhere, and no self-respecting animal would come within eyeshot of it except in times of drought, when the half-ruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water. ‘It is half a night’s journey—at full speed,’ said Bagheera, and Baloo looked very serious. ‘I will go as fast as I can,’ he said anxiously. ‘We dare not wait for thee. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the quick-foot—Kaa and I.’ ‘Feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all thy four,’ said Kaa shortly. Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they left him to come on later, while Bagheera hurried forward, at the quick panther- canter. Kaa said nothing, but, strive as Bagheera might, the huge Rock-python held level with him. When they came to a hill stream, Bagheera gained, because he bounded across while Kaa swam, his head and two feet of his neck 58 of 241

The Jungle Book clearing the water, but on level ground Kaa made up the distance. ‘By the Broken Lock that freed me,’ said Bagheera, when twilight had fallen, ‘thou art no slow goer!’ ‘I am hungry,’ said Kaa. ‘Besides, they called me speckled frog.’ ‘Worm—earth-worm, and yellow to boot.’ ‘All one. Let us go on,’ and Kaa seemed to pour himself along the ground, finding the shortest road with his steady eyes, and keeping to it. In the Cold Lairs the Monkey-People were not thinking of Mowgli’s friends at all. They had brought the boy to the Lost City, and were very much pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an Indian city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls; the battlements were tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps. 59 of 241

The Jungle Book A great roofless palace crowned the hill, and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split, and stained with red and green, and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king’s elephants used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees. From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that made up the city looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness; the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides. The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the Jungle-People because they lived in the forest. And yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in circles on the hall of the king’s council chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men; or they would run in and out of the roofless houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner, and forget where they had hidden them, and fight and cry in scuffling crowds, and then break off to play up and down the terraces of the king’s garden, where they would shake the rose trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall. They explored all the passages and dark 60 of 241

The Jungle Book tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little dark rooms, but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not; and so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds telling each other that they were doing as men did. They drank at the tanks and made the water all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they would all rush together in mobs and shout: ‘There is no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the Bandar-log.’ Then all would begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the tree-tops, hoping the Jungle-People would notice them. Mowgli, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not like or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged him into the Cold Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about and sang their foolish songs. One of the monkeys made a speech and told his companions that Mowgli’s capture marked a new thing in the history of the Bandar-log, for Mowgli was going to show them how to weave sticks and canes together as a protection against rain and cold. Mowgli picked up some creepers and began to work them in and out, and the monkeys tried to imitate; but in a very few minutes they lost interest and began to 61 of 241

The Jungle Book pull their friends’ tails or jump up and down on all fours, coughing. ‘I wish to eat,’ said Mowgli. ‘I am a stranger in this part of the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here.’ Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild pawpaws. But they fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit. Mowgli was sore and angry as well as hungry, and he roamed through the empty city giving the Strangers’ Hunting Call from time to time, but no one answered him, and Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed. ‘All that Baloo has said about the Bandar-log is true,’ he thought to himself. ‘They have no Law, no Hunting Call, and no leaders—nothing but foolish words and little picking thievish hands. So if I am starved or killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my own jungle. Baloo will surely beat me, but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves with the Bandar-log.’ No sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went with 62 of 241

The Jungle Book the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half-full of rain water. There was a ruined summer-house of white marble in the center of the terrace, built for queens dead a hundred years ago. The domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the queens used to enter. But the walls were made of screens of marble tracery—beautiful milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it shone through the open work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery. Sore, sleepy, and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when the Bandar-log began, twenty at a time, to tell him how great and wise and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave them. ‘We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true,’ they shouted. ‘Now as you are a new listener and can carry our words back to the Jungle-People so that they may notice us in future, we will tell you all about our most excellent selves.’ Mowgli made no objection, and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and hundreds on the terrace to listen to their own speakers singing the praises of the Bandar- 63 of 241

The Jungle Book log, and whenever a speaker stopped for want of breath they would all shout together: ‘This is true; we all say so.’ Mowgli nodded and blinked, and said ‘Yes’ when they asked him a question, and his head spun with the noise. ‘Tabaqui the Jackal must have bitten all these people,’ he said to himself, ‘and now they have madness. Certainly this is dewanee, the madness. Do they never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming to cover that moon. If it were only a big enough cloud I might try to run away in the darkness. But I am tired.’ That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined ditch below the city wall, for Bagheera and Kaa, knowing well how dangerous the Monkey-People were in large numbers, did not wish to run any risks. The monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and few in the jungle care for those odds. ‘I will go to the west wall,’ Kaa whispered, ‘and come down swiftly with the slope of the ground in my favor. They will not throw themselves upon my back in their hundreds, but—‘ ‘I know it,’ said Bagheera. ‘Would that Baloo were here, but we must do what we can. When that cloud covers the moon I shall go to the terrace. They hold some sort of council there over the boy.’ 64 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Good hunting,’ said Kaa grimly, and glided away to the west wall. That happened to be the least ruined of any, and the big snake was delayed awhile before he could find a way up the stones. The cloud hid the moon, and as Mowgli wondered what would come next he heard Bagheera’s light feet on the terrace. The Black Panther had raced up the slope almost without a sound and was striking—he knew better than to waste time in biting— right and left among the monkeys, who were seated round Mowgli in circles fifty and sixty deep. There was a howl of fright and rage, and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling kicking bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted: ‘There is only one here! Kill him! Kill.’ A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and pulling, closed over Bagheera, while five or six laid hold of Mowgli, dragged him up the wall of the summerhouse and pushed him through the hole of the broken dome. A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet. ‘Stay there,’ shouted the monkeys, ‘till we have killed thy friends, and later we will play with thee—if the Poison-People leave thee alive.’ 65 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘We be of one blood, ye and I,’ said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake’s Call. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him and gave the Call a second time, to make sure. ‘Even ssso! Down hoods all!’ said half a dozen low voices (every ruin in India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes, and the old summerhouse was alive with cobras). ‘Stand still, Little Brother, for thy feet may do us harm.’ Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the open work and listening to the furious din of the fight round the Black Panther—the yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera’s deep, hoarse cough as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his enemies. For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for his life. ‘Baloo must be at hand; Bagheera would not have come alone,’ Mowgli thought. And then he called aloud: ‘To the tank, Bagheera. Roll to the water tanks. Roll and plunge! Get to the water!’ Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new courage. He worked his way desperately, inch by inch, straight for the reservoirs, halting in silence. Then from the ruined wall nearest the 66 of 241

The Jungle Book jungle rose up the rumbling war-shout of Baloo. The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before. ‘Bagheera,’ he shouted, ‘I am here. I climb! I haste! Ahuwora! The stones slip under my feet! Wait my coming, O most infamous Bandar-log!’ He panted up the terrace only to disappear to the head in a wave of monkeys, but he threw himself squarely on his haunches, and, spreading out his forepaws, hugged as many as he could hold, and then began to hit with a regular bat-bat- bat, like the flipping strokes of a paddle wheel. A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the tank where the monkeys could not follow. The Panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out of the water, while the monkeys stood three deep on the red steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides if he came out to help Baloo. It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the Snake’s Call for protection—‘We be of one blood, ye and I’— for he believed that Kaa had turned tail at the last minute. Even Baloo, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the Black Panther asking for help. Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a coping stone into 67 of 241

The Jungle Book the ditch. He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order. All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheera, and Mang the Bat, flying to and fro, carried the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi the Wild Elephant trumpeted, and, far away, scattered bands of the Monkey-Folk woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the day birds for miles round. Then Kaa came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill. The fighting strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head backed by all the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine a lance, or a battering ram, or a hammer weighing nearly half a ton driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can roughly imagine what Kaa was like when he fought. A python four or five feet long can knock a man down if he hits him fairly in the chest, and Kaa was thirty feet long, as you know. His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd round Baloo. It was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no need of a second. The monkeys scattered with cries of—‘Kaa! It is Kaa! Run! Run!’ 68 of 241

The Jungle Book Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behavior by the stories their elders told them of Kaa, the night thief, who could slip along the branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey that ever lived; of old Kaa, who could make himself look so like a dead branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived, till the branch caught them. Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran, stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and Baloo drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than Bagheera’s, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Kaa opened his mouth for the first time and spoke one long hissing word, and the far-away monkeys, hurrying to the defense of the Cold Lairs, stayed where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and crackled under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped their cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city Mowgli heard Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came up from the tank. Then the clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls. They clung around the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along 69 of 241

The Jungle Book the battlements, while Mowgli, dancing in the summerhouse, put his eye to the screenwork and hooted owl-fashion between his front teeth, to show his derision and contempt. ‘Get the man-cub out of that trap; I can do no more,’ Bagheera gasped. ‘Let us take the man-cub and go. They may attack again.’ ‘They will not move till I order them. Stay you sssso!’ Kaa hissed, and the city was silent once more. ‘I could not come before, Brother, but I think I heard thee call’—this was to Bagheera. ‘I—I may have cried out in the battle,’ Bagheera answered. ‘Baloo, art thou hurt? ‘I am not sure that they did not pull me into a hundred little bearlings,’ said Baloo, gravely shaking one leg after the other. ‘Wow! I am sore. Kaa, we owe thee, I think, our lives—Bagheera and I.’ ‘No matter. Where is the manling?’ ‘Here, in a trap. I cannot climb out,’ cried Mowgli. The curve of the broken dome was above his head. ‘Take him away. He dances like Mao the Peacock. He will crush our young,’ said the cobras inside. 70 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Hah!’ said Kaa with a chuckle, ‘he has friends everywhere, this manling. Stand back, manling. And hide you, O Poison People. I break down the wall.’ Kaa looked carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows, nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between Baloo and Bagheera—an arm around each big neck. ‘Art thou hurt?’ said Baloo, hugging him softly. ‘I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised. But, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed.’ ‘Others also,’ said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank. ‘It is nothing, it is nothing, if thou art safe, oh, my pride of all little frogs!’ whimpered Baloo. ‘Of that we shall judge later,’ said Bagheera, in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. ‘But here is Kaa to whom we owe the battle and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli.’ 71 of 241

The Jungle Book Mowgli turned and saw the great Python’s head swaying a foot above his own. ‘So this is the manling,’ said Kaa. ‘Very soft is his skin, and he is not unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.’ ‘We be one blood, thou and I,’ Mowgli answered. ‘I take my life from thee tonight. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.’ ‘All thanks, Little Brother,’ said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. ‘And what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad.’ ‘I kill nothing,—I am too little,—but I drive goats toward such as can use them. When thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these [he held out his hands], and if ever thou art in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bagheera, and to Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters.’ ‘Well said,’ growled Baloo, for Mowgli had returned thanks very prettily. The Python dropped his head lightly for a minute on Mowgli’s shoulder. ‘A brave heart and a courteous tongue,’ said he. ‘They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling. But now go hence quickly 72 of 241

The Jungle Book with thy friends. Go and sleep, for the moon sets, and what follows it is not well that thou shouldst see.’ The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged shaky fringes of things. Baloo went down to the tank for a drink and Bagheera began to put his fur in order, as Kaa glided out into the center of the terrace and brought his jaws together with a ringing snap that drew all the monkeys’ eyes upon him. ‘The moon sets,’ he said. ‘Is there yet light enough to see?’ From the walls came a moan like the wind in the tree- tops— ‘We see, O Kaa.’ ‘Good. Begins now the dance—the Dance of the Hunger of Kaa. Sit still and watch.’ He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right to left. Then he began making loops and figures of eight with his body, and soft, oozy triangles that melted into squares and five-sided figures, and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never stopping his low humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle of the scales. 73 of 241

The Jungle Book Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered. ‘Bandar-log,’ said the voice of Kaa at last, ‘can ye stir foot or hand without my order? Speak!’ ‘Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Kaa!’ ‘Good! Come all one pace nearer to me.’ The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them. ‘Nearer!’ hissed Kaa, and they all moved again. Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream. ‘Keep thy hand on my shoulder,’ Bagheera whispered. ‘Keep it there, or I must go back—must go back to Kaa. Aah!’ ‘It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust,’ said Mowgli. ‘Let us go.’ And the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle. ‘Whoof!’ said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again. ‘Never more will I make an ally of Kaa,’ and he shook himself all over. 74 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘He knows more than we,’ said Bagheera, trembling. ‘In a little time, had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat.’ ‘Many will walk by that road before the moon rises again,’ said Baloo. ‘He will have good hunting—after his own fashion.’ ‘But what was the meaning of it all?’ said Mowgli, who did not know anything of a python’s powers of fascination. ‘I saw no more than a big snake making foolish circles till the dark came. And his nose was all sore. Ho! Ho!’ ‘Mowgli,’ said Bagheera angrily, ‘his nose was sore on thy account, as my ears and sides and paws, and Baloo’s neck and shoulders are bitten on thy account. Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with pleasure for many days.’ ‘It is nothing,’ said Baloo; ‘we have the man-cub again.’ ‘True, but he has cost us heavily in time which might have been spent in good hunting, in wounds, in hair—I am half plucked along my back—and last of all, in honor. For, remember, Mowgli, I, who am the Black Panther, was forced to call upon Kaa for protection, and Baloo and I were both made stupid as little birds by the Hunger 75 of 241

The Jungle Book Dance. All this, man-cub, came of thy playing with the Bandar-log.’ ‘True, it is true,’ said Mowgli sorrowfully. ‘I am an evil man-cub, and my stomach is sad in me.’ ‘Mf! What says the Law of the Jungle, Baloo?’ Baloo did not wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could not tamper with the Law, so he mumbled: ‘Sorrow never stays punishment. But remember, Bagheera, he is very little.’ ‘I will remember. But he has done mischief, and blows must be dealt now. Mowgli, hast thou anything to say?’ ‘Nothing. I did wrong. Baloo and thou are wounded. It is just.’ Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps from a panther’s point of view (they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs), but for a seven-year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to avoid. When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up without a word. ‘Now,’ said Bagheera, ‘jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go home.’ One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterward. 76 of 241

The Jungle Book Mowgli laid his head down on Bagheera’s back and slept so deeply that he never waked when he was put down in the home-cave. 77 of 241

The Jungle Book Road-Song of the Bandar-Log Here we go in a flung festoon, Half-way up to the jealous moon! Don’t you envy our pranceful bands? Don’t you wish you had extra hands? Wouldn’t you like if your tails were—so— Curved in the shape of a Cupid’s bow? Now you’re angry, but—never mind, Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! Here we sit in a branchy row, Thinking of beautiful things we know; Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do, All complete, in a minute or two— Something noble and wise and good, Done by merely wishing we could. We’ve forgotten, but—never mind, Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! All the talk we ever have heard Uttered by bat or beast or bird— Hide or fin or scale or feather— Jabber it quickly and all together! Excellent! Wonderful! Once again! Now we are talking just like men! 78 of 241

The Jungle Book Let’s pretend we are ... never mind, Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! This is the way of the Monkey-kind. Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines, That rocket by where, light and high, the wild grape swings. By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make, Be sure, be sure, we’re going to do some splendid things! 79 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Tiger! Tiger!’ What of the hunting, hunter bold? Brother, the watch was long and cold. What of the quarry ye went to kill? Brother, he crops in the jungle still. Where is the power that made your pride? Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side. Where is the haste that ye hurry by? Brother, I go to my lair—to die. Now we must go back to the first tale. When Mowgli left the wolf’s cave after the fight with the Pack at the Council Rock, he went down to the plowed lands where the villagers lived, but he would not stop there because it was too near to the jungle, and he knew that he had made at least one bad enemy at the Council. So he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a steady jog-trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know. The valley opened out into a great plain dotted over with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe. All over the plain, cattle and buffaloes 80 of 241

The Jungle Book were grazing, and when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked. Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the village gate he saw the big thorn- bush that was drawn up before the gate at twilight, pushed to one side. ‘Umph!’ he said, for he had come across more than one such barricade in his night rambles after things to eat. ‘So men are afraid of the People of the Jungle here also.’ He sat down by the gate, and when a man came out he stood up, opened his mouth, and pointed down it to show that he wanted food. The man stared, and ran back up the one street of the village shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked and shouted and pointed at Mowgli. ‘They have no manners, these Men Folk,’ said Mowgli to himself. ‘Only the gray ape would behave as they do.’ So he threw back his long hair and frowned at the crowd. ‘What is there to be afraid of?’ said the priest. ‘Look at the marks on his arms and legs. They are the bites of wolves. He is but a wolf-child run away from the jungle.’ 81 of 241

The Jungle Book Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites, for he knew what real biting meant. ‘Arre! Arre!’ said two or three women together. ‘To be bitten by wolves, poor child! He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like red fire. By my honor, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger.’ ‘Let me look,’ said a woman with heavy copper rings on her wrists and ankles, and she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her hand. ‘Indeed he is not. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy.’ The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place. So he looked up at the sky for a minute and said solemnly: ‘What the jungle has taken the jungle has restored. Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the priest who sees so far into the lives of men.’ ‘By the Bull that bought me,’ said Mowgli to himself, ‘but all this talking is like another looking-over by the Pack! Well, if I am a man, a man I must become.’ The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great 82 of 241

The Jungle Book earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell at the country fairs. She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his eyes; for she thought perhaps that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had taken him. So she said, ‘Nathoo, O Nathoo!’ Mowgli did not show that he knew the name. ‘Dost thou not remember the day when I gave thee thy new shoes?’ She touched his foot, and it was almost as hard as horn. ‘No,’ she said sorrowfully, ‘those feet have never worn shoes, but thou art very like my Nathoo, and thou shalt be my son.’ Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before. But as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. ‘What is the good of a man,’ he said to himself at last, ‘if he does not understand man’s talk? Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would be with us in the jungle. I must speak their talk.’ It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig. So, as soon as 83 of 241

The Jungle Book Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut. There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything that looked so like a panther trap as that hut, and when they shut the door he went through the window. ‘Give him his will,’ said Messua’s husband. ‘Remember he can never till now have slept on a bed. If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will not run away.’ So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the edge of the field, but before he had closed his eyes a soft gray nose poked him under the chin. ‘Phew!’ said Gray Brother (he was the eldest of Mother Wolf’s cubs). ‘This is a poor reward for following thee twenty miles. Thou smellest of wood smoke and cattle— altogether like a man already. Wake, Little Brother; I bring news.’ ‘Are all well in the jungle?’ said Mowgli, hugging him. ‘All except the wolves that were burned with the Red Flower. Now, listen. Shere Khan has gone away to hunt far off till his coat grows again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will lay thy bones in the Waingunga.’ 84 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘There are two words to that. I also have made a little promise. But news is always good. I am tired to-night,— very tired with new things, Gray Brother,—but bring me the news always.’ ‘Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee forget?’ said Gray Brother anxiously. ‘Never. I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave. But also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the Pack.’ ‘And that thou mayest be cast out of another pack. Men are only men, Little Brother, and their talk is like the talk of frogs in a pond. When I come down here again, I will wait for thee in the bamboos at the edge of the grazing-ground.’ For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village gate, he was so busy learning the ways and customs of men. First he had to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly; and then he had to learn about money, which he did not in the least understand, and about plowing, of which he did not see the use. Then the little children in the village made him very angry. Luckily, the Law of the Jungle had taught him to keep his temper, for in the jungle life and food depend on keeping your temper; but when they made fun of him because he 85 of 241

The Jungle Book would not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced some word, only the knowledge that it was unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept him from picking them up and breaking them in two. He did not know his own strength in the least. In the jungle he knew he was weak compared with the beasts, but in the village people said that he was as strong as a bull. And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes between man and man. When the potter’s donkey slipped in the clay pit, Mowgli hauled it out by the tail, and helped to stack the pots for their journey to the market at Khanhiwara. That was very shocking, too, for the potter is a low-caste man, and his donkey is worse. When the priest scolded him, Mowgli threatened to put him on the donkey too, and the priest told Messua’s husband that Mowgli had better be set to work as soon as possible; and the village head-man told Mowgli that he would have to go out with the buffaloes next day, and herd them while they grazed. No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he had been appointed a servant of the village, as it were, he went off to a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great fig-tree. It was the village club, and 86 of 241

The Jungle Book the head-man and the watchman and the barber, who knew all the gossip of the village, and old Buldeo, the village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked. The monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the platform where a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk every night because he was sacred; and the old men sat around the tree and talked, and pulled at the big huqas (the water-pipes) till far into the night. They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts; and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the jungle, till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads. Most of the tales were about animals, for the jungle was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within sight of the village gates. Mowgli, who naturally knew something about what they were talking of, had to cover his face not to show that he was laughing, while Buldeo, the Tower musket across his knees, climbed on from one wonderful story to another, and Mowgli’s shoulders shook. Buldeo was explaining how the tiger that had carried away Messua’s son was a ghost-tiger, and his body was 87 of 241

The Jungle Book inhabited by the ghost of a wicked, old money-lender, who had died some years ago. ‘And I know that this is true,’ he said, ‘because Purun Dass always limped from the blow that he got in a riot when his account books were burned, and the tiger that I speak of he limps, too, for the tracks of his pads are unequal.’ ‘True, true, that must be the truth,’ said the gray- beards, nodding together. ‘Are all these tales such cobwebs and moon talk?’ said Mowgli. ‘That tiger limps because he was born lame, as everyone knows. To talk of the soul of a money-lender in a beast that never had the courage of a jackal is child’s talk.’ Buldeo was speechless with surprise for a moment, and the head-man stared. ‘Oho! It is the jungle brat, is it?’ said Buldeo. ‘If thou art so wise, better bring his hide to Khanhiwara, for the Government has set a hundred rupees on his life. Better still, talk not when thy elders speak.’ Mowgli rose to go. ‘All the evening I have lain here listening,’ he called back over his shoulder, ‘and, except once or twice, Buldeo has not said one word of truth concerning the jungle, which is at his very doors. How, 88 of 241

The Jungle Book then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen?’ ‘It is full time that boy went to herding,’ said the head- man, while Buldeo puffed and snorted at Mowgli’s impertinence. The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and bring them back at night. The very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their noses. So long as the boys keep with the herds they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle. But if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes carried off. Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama, the great herd bull. The slaty-blue buffaloes, with their long, backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out their byres, one by one, and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long, polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be very careful not to stray away from the herd. 89 of 241

The Jungle Book An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear. The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours. Mowgli drove them on to the edge of the plain where the Waingunga came out of the jungle; then he dropped from Rama’s neck, trotted off to a bamboo clump, and found Gray Brother. ‘Ah,’ said Gray Brother, ‘I have waited here very many days. What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work?’ ‘It is an order,’ said Mowgli. ‘I am a village herd for a while. What news of Shere Khan?’ ‘He has come back to this country, and has waited here a long time for thee. Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce. But he means to kill thee.’ ‘Very good,’ said Mowgli. ‘So long as he is away do thou or one of the four brothers sit on that rock, so that I can see thee as I come out of the village. When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by the dhak tree in the center of the plain. We need not walk into Shere Khan’s mouth.’ Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of the laziest things in the world. The cattle 90 of 241

The Jungle Book move and crunch, and lie down, and move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and staring china-blue eyes show above the surface, and then they lie like logs. The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd children hear one kite (never any more) whistling almost out of sight overhead, and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere. Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put grasshoppers in them; or catch two praying mantises and make them fight; or string a necklace of red and black jungle nuts; or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows. Then they sing long, long songs with odd native quavers at the end of them, and the day seems longer than most people’s whole lives, and perhaps they make a mud castle with mud figures of men and horses and buffaloes, and put reeds into the men’s hands, and pretend that they are kings and the figures are their armies, or that they are 91 of 241

The Jungle Book gods to be worshiped. Then evening comes and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other, and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village lights. Day after day Mowgli would lead the buffaloes out to their wallows, and day after day he would see Gray Brother’s back a mile and a half away across the plain (so he knew that Shere Khan had not come back), and day after day he would lie on the grass listening to the noises round him, and dreaming of old days in the jungle. If Shere Khan had made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli would have heard him in those long, still mornings. At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the dhk tree, which was all covered with golden-red flowers. There sat Gray Brother, every bristle on his back lifted. ‘He has hidden for a month to throw thee off thy guard. He crossed the ranges last night with Tabaqui, hot- foot on thy trail,’ said the Wolf, panting. Mowgli frowned. ‘I am not afraid of Shere Khan, but Tabaqui is very cunning.’ 92 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Have no fear,’ said Gray Brother, licking his lips a little. ‘I met Tabaqui in the dawn. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but he told me everything before I broke his back. Shere Khan’s plan is to wait for thee at the village gate this evening—for thee and for no one else. He is lying up now, in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga.’ ‘Has he eaten today, or does he hunt empty?’ said Mowgli, for the answer meant life and death to him. ‘He killed at dawn,—a pig,—and he has drunk too. Remember, Shere Khan could never fast, even for the sake of revenge.’ ‘Oh! Fool, fool! What a cub’s cub it is! Eaten and drunk too, and he thinks that I shall wait till he has slept! Now, where does he lie up? If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it?’ ‘He swam far down the Waingunga to cut that off,’ said Gray Brother. ‘Tabaqui told him that, I know. He would never have thought of it alone.’ Mowgli stood with his finger in his mouth, thinking. ‘The big ravine of the Waingunga. That opens out on the plain not half a mile from here. I can 93 of 241

The Jungle Book take the herd round through the jungle to the head of the ravine and then sweep down —but he would slink out at the foot. We must block that end. Gray Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for me?’ ‘Not I, perhaps—but I have brought a wise helper.’ Gray Brother trotted off and dropped into a hole. Then there lifted up a huge gray head that Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry of all the jungle—the hunting howl of a wolf at midday. ‘Akela! Akela!’ said Mowgli, clapping his hands. ‘I might have known that thou wouldst not forget me. We have a big work in hand. Cut the herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and the plow buffaloes by themselves.’ The two wolves ran, ladies’-chain fashion, in and out of the herd, which snorted and threw up its head, and separated into two clumps. In one, the cow-buffaloes stood with their calves in the center, and glared and pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and trample the life out of him. In the other, the bulls and the young bulls snorted and stamped, but though they looked more imposing they were much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could have divided the herd so neatly. 94 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘What orders!’ panted Akela. ‘They are trying to join again.’ Mowgli slipped on to Rama’s back. ‘Drive the bulls away to the left, Akela. Gray Brother, when we are gone, hold the cows together, and drive them into the foot of the ravine.’ ‘How far?’ said Gray Brother, panting and snapping. ‘Till the sides are higher than Shere Khan can jump,’ shouted Mowgli. ‘Keep them there till we come down.’ The bulls swept off as Akela bayed, and Gray Brother stopped in front of the cows. They charged down on him, and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove the bulls far to the left. ‘Well done! Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful, now—careful, Akela. A snap too much and the bulls will charge. Hujah! This is wilder work than driving black-buck. Didst thou think these creatures could move so swiftly?’ Mowgli called. ‘I have—have hunted these too in my time,’ gasped Akela in the dust. ‘Shall I turn them into the jungle?’ ‘Ay! Turn. Swiftly turn them! Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.’ The bulls were turned, to the right this time, and crashed into the standing thicket. The other herd children, 95 of 241

The Jungle Book watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away. But Mowgli’s plan was simple enough. All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows; for he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine. He was soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to the ravine itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out. 96 of 241

The Jungle Book ‘Let them breathe, Akela,’ he said, holding up his hand. ‘They have not winded him yet. Let them breathe. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We have him in the trap.’ He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine— it was almost like shouting down a tunnel—and the echoes jumped from rock to rock. After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a full-fed tiger just wakened. ‘Who calls?’ said Shere Khan, and a splendid peacock fluttered up out of the ravine screeching. ‘I, Mowgli. Cattle thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock! Down—hurry them down, Akela! Down, Rama, down!’ The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the other, just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up round them. Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and bellowed. ‘Ha! Ha!’ said Mowgli, on his back. ‘Now thou knowest!’ and the torrent of black horns, foaming muzzles, and staring eyes whirled down the ravine just as boulders go down in floodtime; the weaker buffaloes being 97 of 241

The Jungle Book shouldered out to the sides of the ravine where they tore through the creepers. They knew what the business was before them—the terrible charge of the buffalo herd against which no tiger can hope to stand. Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight and he had to hold on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather than fight. The herd splashed through the pool he had just left, bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere Khan turn (the tiger knew if the worst came to the worst it was better to meet the bulls than the cows with their calves), and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again over something soft, and, with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into the other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the shock of the meeting. That charge carried both herds out into the plain, goring and stamping and snorting. Mowgli watched his time, and slipped off Rama’s neck, laying about him right and left with his stick. ‘Quick, Akela! Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting one another. Drive them away, Akela. 98 of 241

The Jungle Book Hai, Rama! Hai, hai, hai! my children. Softly now, softly! It is all over.’ Akela and Gray Brother ran to and fro nipping the buffaloes’ legs, and though the herd wheeled once to charge up the ravine again, Mowgli managed to turn Rama, and the others followed him to the wallows. Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were coming for him already. ‘Brothers, that was a dog’s death,’ said Mowgli, feeling for the knife he always carried in a sheath round his neck now that he lived with men. ‘But he would never have shown fight. His hide will look well on the Council Rock. We must get to work swiftly.’ A boy trained among men would never have dreamed of skinning a ten-foot tiger alone, but Mowgli knew better than anyone else how an animal’s skin is fitted on, and how it can be taken off. But it was hard work, and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves lolled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them. Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Buldeo with the Tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct Mowgli for not taking better care of the 99 of 241

The Jungle Book herd. The wolves dropped out of sight as soon as they saw the man coming. ‘What is this folly?’ said Buldeo angrily. ‘To think that thou canst skin a tiger! Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the Lame Tiger too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the skin to Khanhiwara.’ He fumbled in his waist cloth for flint and steel, and stooped down to singe Shere Khan’s whiskers. Most native hunters always singe a tiger’s whiskers to prevent his ghost from haunting them. ‘Hum!’ said Mowgli, half to himself as he ripped back the skin of a forepaw. ‘So thou wilt take the hide to Khanhiwara for the reward, and perhaps give me one rupee? Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for my own use. Heh! Old man, take away that fire!’ ‘What talk is this to the chief hunter of the village? Thy luck and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill. The tiger has just fed, or he would have gone twenty miles by this time. Thou canst not even skin him properly, little beggar brat, and forsooth I, Buldeo, must be told not to singe his whiskers. Mowgli, I will not give 100 of 241